I used to think Twitter was silly

[Catfish2]

And no, this thread really isn't about Twitter at all.

https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity

And guess what, that crazy landing worked. The rover made it safely, in one functional piece.

[kbw]

I'm very surprised myself. Impressive work, another small step for mankind.

[Gaminic]

Any reason why you were "surprised"? I'd say they would be pretty sure before attempting. Shit can happen, but failures are still exceptions, aren't they?

[kbw]

Surprised because it's a complicated procedure that cannot be fully tested and controlled across a link where the high latency is longer than the procedure being controlled.

Just because something is designed doesn't mean it will work, especially if it's not fully tested. And fully tested machinery fails all around us a lot of the time. I'm sure your browser's crashed at some point, and this site's been unavailable a few times recently; all exceptions.

So yes, I am surprised and impressed with the landing.

[dem7w2]

Good thing they did the correct unit conversions =D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

I watched the Curiosity landing last night though. Good stuff, I'm happy for them and I hope it leads to more funding.

[hanst99]

Just because something is designed doesn't mean it will work, especially if it's not fully tested. And fully tested machinery fails all around us a lot of the time. I'm sure your browser's crashed at some point, and this site's been unavailable a few times recently; all exceptions.

Yeah, but none of those are occassions where anyone is likely to lose millions... tens of millions... however much this costed, so I guess tests are taken a bit less seriously.

[Cheraphy]

Relevent XKCD: http://www.xkcd.com/1091/

_{Also the excuse I would have used when I was slow at work today if I hadn't called off yesterday so I could go to an interview for a better job today.}

[3hM2Nwbp]

Relevent RvB: http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?id=54

tucker wrote:

the most voyeuristic nerds in the universe